Erbatax-il

Today I would like to write a friendly critique of one of my other classmate's blog posts.

In this blog post, my classmate contends that they believe the phrase "if you're not for it, you're against it" should apply to government. My classmate is essentially saying that someone should either support 100% of the governments rules and regulations, or be against 100% of them. I understand my classmate to mean that they believe any set of beliefs that does not fit either of these strict absolutes is in some way illogical.

If my understanding of my classmate's blog is correct, then I must say that I firmly disagree. After all, isn't the very structure of democracy built around the assumption that there will be disagreement on issues? A government in concordance to the ideology put forth by my classmate could only exist as an authoritarian government. Rules and regulations would be decided by the ruling class with complete obedience expected from all subordinates. The population of society without decision making power would never be allowed to have an opinion, and dissidents would be swiftly crushed.

Of course this kind of government I have described is not merely a hypothetical. Two prominent examples that come to mind are Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany. Few would argue that either of these governments were just, and yet all of their actions were legal by their own standards. Of course that kind of moral putrefaction happens often in authoritarian governments, often enough to ponder if corruption of justice is simply inevitable when power is concentrated in the hands of so few.

Yet even with democracy here the United States there have been many laws that were later found to be unjust. Slavery for example was once perfectly legal, as was segregation after it. Yet under a system of absolutes, we would have to say that anyone who opposed and broke laws during this time period must fit into the "against" government category. One such individual who fits into this category is Harriet Tubman, as attempting to free slaves was once highly illegal. According to my classmate, people such as Harriet must comply with one of two options in order to be logical. They must either forfeit all government benefits--declaring themselves against government--, or support slavery/segregation, declaring themselves for government. Under the view of dividing all opinions into two absolutes, these would be the only two options. Harriet Tubman fits into nether of these categories, and she should not be expected to either.

Essentially it seems to me that my classmate's view does not account for laws that are unjust. As I believe that unjust laws will always have the potential to exist, I do not think absolute obedience to all laws should ever be seen as the only logical option for those who wish to support the government.

Vocab--
putrefaction: moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles
Concordance: agreement of opinions